WATCH: Canadian Tire ramps up its e-commerce strategy, introducing giant self-serve pick-up towers in Canada. Tomasia DaSilva shows how they work and explains whether they will put employees out of work.

Canadian Tire is evolving its e-commerce strategy and setting up giant self-serve pick-up towers in Canada — which is a Canadian first, according to assistant vice-president of Click & Collect.

“All the feedback from our customers around our in-store pickup has been that the wait time is too long to pickup their orders,” Alma Obeid said.

“The self-serve pick-up tower really makes that customer experience very quick, taking it down to 20 to 30 seconds.”

The towers were recently launched in select locations across Canada: Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Saskatoon.

They are similar to a large vending machine. Customers put in a PIN or QR code, the machine reads it, a window opens up and the package comes out.

At 16.5 feet tall, the tower holds up to 250 orders.

“We’re giving them the convenience where they want it,” Obeid said, “giving them the opportunity to shop how they want and when they want.”